


I'll Be A Thorn In Your Side

by th_esaurus



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Casual Sex, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-24
Updated: 2014-08-24
Packaged: 2018-02-14 13:30:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2193600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/th_esaurus/pseuds/th_esaurus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I sleep like shit with someone else in the bed," Rumlow told him, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.</p><p>"Oh, I'll take the sofa," Steve said, breathing hard.</p><p>"Nah, I'll just sleep like shit," Rumlow shrugged, smiling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Be A Thorn In Your Side

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic about Steve Rogers and Brock Rumlow being casual boyfriends. This is not the Hydra trash party fic you are looking for. Lizzen is writing the Hydra trash party companion piece to this work. It's gonna blow this one out of the water.

That was not his first kiss since 1945. He's ninety-five, Natasha, he's not dead.

*

Natasha threw names at him like he was a dartboard, and she was not exactly a poor shot. Kelly with the red hair from Human Resources. Tattooed Amelia who worked the espresso machine at Steve's local diner. Kevin from the local shooting range, you know, he works the weekend and evening shifts. Black hair, dark skin. Biceps. You've seen his biceps.

"SHIELD has its own firing range," Steve said tersely.

"I'm encouraging you to get out on the town," Natasha replied, a foot shorter than him and easily keeping his pace as they marched down for debriefing. Her hair was crisp on one side where she'd rolled a split-second late away from an incendiary. Steve had checked her temple and neck in the field. No damage.

A handful of Strike personnel were quickstepping behind them. Brock Rumlow and a few of his men. Well within earshot.

"I can get Kevin's number for you if you want," Natasha said conversationally.

Steve could hear Rumlow's little chuckle just behind him, and didn't know if it was because his hearing was kind of extraordinary these days, or because Rumlow wanted him to.

*

There was a strangeness in shaking hands with someone, as Captain America. It happened at commendations, and it happened when you were introduced to people who had been told they must take a bullet for you if the time came.

When they met, Rumlow's handshake was firm and easy. Like he wouldn't hold it against Steve. If the time came.

*

Steve's skin was clammy from his workout, but Rumlow had sweated clean through his tank top. He was a well-built guy, compact, approaching middle age with grace and a few salt and pepper flecks around his temples. People tended to try and keep up with Steve in the gym, and it frustrated him to cut back on his reps, pull his punches against the bag; but Rumlow knew his limitations, stuck to his own choreography.

Steve appreciated it, quietly.

They talked after as they showered, nothing particularly personal, background murmurs and low laughter. Steve knew very little about Rumlow, and he was the kind of man who kept it that way intentionally.

Steve had, of course, made the mistake of keeping close to his Sergeant before. Long life was not a given in their line of work. Personal connections could be, Steve knew, forcibly severed.

"Romanoff sure likes windin' you up," Rumlow said, grinning, towelling himself down briskly.

Steve sighed, smiled. "She'd stop if I asked her to."

They were only half dressed when Rumlow clapped a hand on Steve's shoulder and said, "C'mon, big guy. Come out for a drink or three."

People tended not to invite national icons out for a night on the tiles. Rumlow had read files and factsheets on Steve's metabolism, his musculature, his bone structure, the chemical make-up of his white blood cells. "I can't get drunk," Steve said anyway.

"Not what I'm asking," Rumlow shot back.

His hand was still on Steve's bare shoulder.

"Okay," Steve said.

*

Rumlow turned out to be a lager drinker, so they headed up Northeast H and found a free corner bench in a cheap beer garden. The music was loud enough to skew the crowd young, but it was pleasant, open, and they racked up the pint glasses on their wooden table soon enough. Rumlow leaned in close and spoke in Steve's ear about how he couldn't stand all this craft beer bullcrap, he just wanted a simple drink.

Rumlow told jokes that were just this side of crass, and looked pleased when he made Steve snort into his glass. Everyone tended to err on the side of prudishness with Steve. Rose-tinted views of the forties and common knowledge of his views on romance and true love. Under duress, Peggy had contributed to biographies of Steve, after his fall. Interviewers that took her quaint anecdote of a back-seat conversation about dames and turned it into a snide commentary on Steve's sexual inexperience.

It was sort of nice to feel like one of the guys, for a night.

His phone buzzed in his back pocket, and Steve pulled it out, apologizing; a message from Natasha, a hastily scribbled phone number on a napkin. _Call Kevin_ , she'd written underneath.

 _I'm out_ , Steve replied. And then he added, _with someone_ , and hit send.

*

He saw Rumlow home, because the man had drunk plenty, even if he was lucid. Saw him right up to his apartment hallway.

"Look, Cap," Rumlow said. He smiled and shook his head, as if he'd meant to tell a joke out loud and hadn't quite managed it. "Look. You're a stand-up guy, you know that?"

"People have told me," Steve said wryly. Not a good soldier, but a good man.

"And I'm not—I ain't putting a binding contract on the table here, right?"

Steve frowned, and Rumlow laughed at his expression. That same low chuckle.

"You wanna come in?" he said easily.

"I should get back," Steve replied, still frowning.

"I mean," Rumlow said, leaning against the doorframe of his one-bed apartment. "You wanna stay the night?"

Steve was not—fooled by the concept of true love. Not sold in on that Hallmark ideal of love at first sight, of knowing whether someone was The One or not. He had respect for people's emotions, that's all. More respect sometimes than he had for his own.

"—I should get back," he murmured.

*

Natasha tucked herself into his chest as he lifted his shield above them both and bounced a grenade back to its point of origin like a hockey puck. "Did you get new aftershave?" she muttered into his neck, grinning.

"Not the time," Steve barked, and clocked Rumlow firing three shots over on his left to clear a path. He put one hand on Natasha's back and stretched the other in front of them both, shield high, leaving both her hands free to shoot. Rumlow picked off a few stragglers on Steve's six. All in all it was uneventful, if not exactly by the book.

Yes, he had bought new aftershave.

*

"I know you're more of a baseball guy, but Rollins swears by football and we've got a few spares for the Redskins game," Rumlow said, his voice made tinny by the phone line. "Want me to hold one back for you?"

Rumlow laughed when Steve boggled at the price of hot dogs and soda. Rollins told them all to quiet the fuck down every time the group got a little rowdy, a little excitable, and Hershell yelled that he couldn't cuss like that in front of Captain America.

"He don't fucking mind," Rumlow told her mildly, and it made Steve smile. A head taller than the rest of them, sticking out like a sore thumb. His thigh pressed together with Rumlow's on the little plastic seating.

*

Steve had super-human capacity for a lot of things, but patience was not necessarily one of them. Everyone got itchy on long stakeouts. The bridge of his nose ached from his binoculars; Rumlow shifted his shoulder against the butt of his rifle every few minutes; Natasha had started playing _I Spy_ down the comms. It had been four hours.

They were in Hamburg, and it was a beautiful day, the kind of day for promenade strolling and brunches in museums, not playing waiting games with fascist sects. The clear sky made their stone-walled rooftop hot, and Steve was sweating against his collar.

Rumlow rubbed at his shoulder again. Settled the rifle back against it.

"Sorry," Steve muttered.

Rumlow grinned. "You plant these guys out here, Cap?"

"I'm always dropping neo-Nazis in the middle of Germany," Steve said wyly, with no small amount of irony.

Rumlow barked out a loud, dry laugh. "All right. Apology accepted."

*

Natasha asked him, afterwards, if he had been flirting.

"That's not what the communication channels are for, Natasha," Steve told her.

*

He came over ostensibly to run down a set of blueprints they'd acquired, to scope out the exit points and air vents large enough to accommodate the shoulder-span of a larger than average soldier; but the mission was low on the priority list. The fact they'd even let him take the blueprints out of the Triskeleon was signal enough that Nick Fury did not need ears to the ground on this one.

Holding the cardboard tubing at least gave Steve something to do with his hands.

"It wasn't a one-time offer, you know," Rumlow said, smiling lopsidedly. "No sell-by date."

"Right," Steve said promptly. "Right. Okay. I wasn't sure."

*

They watched late-night sports channels and Rumlow had no qualms about padding around his apartment naked to fetch chips and salsa. The chips were a little stale where he'd opened them before an op; not rolled the bag tight enough.

Steve stayed over, and Brock Rumlow sucked his dick twice over the course of the night.

"I sleep like shit with someone else in the bed," Rumlow told him, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Oh, I'll take the sofa," Steve said, breathing hard.

"Nah, I'll just sleep like shit," Rumlow shrugged, smiling.

*

Rumlow offered him coffee in the morning, then poked around with the espresso machine for a good ten minutes. His ma bought it for him, he said, but even the quart of Italian blood in his veins couldn't help him work the damn thing.

Steve showered and jogged down the block to get them Starbucks instead.

*

It wasn't a very regular thing. Not regular enough that he felt the need to tell Natasha. She could keep flinging names at him until something stuck, if she was enjoying herself.

Steve quite liked Rumlow's toothy grins behind her head as she reeled off Craigslist want ads at him like he was the patron saint of lost souls.

*

Steve didn't know what the niceties of modern dating were. Spending seventy years under the ocean wasn't exactly conductive to his stilted social life; the ballrooms and diners of his youth had transformed into nightclubs and Michelin stars. Still, he invited Rumlow over for something to eat, tidied his apartment beforehand, muttered good evening to his bright, blonde neighbour - the nurse, Sharon, Natasha had told him more than once - and felt rude that he couldn't bring himself to meet her gently flirting smile.

He frowned at several bottles of wine in the grocery store. Bought one. Walked slowly through the home decor aisle, past the candles, white ones and red ones and tall ones and ones shaped like big blocky hearts-- but he didn't get any.

Rumlow ate his home-cooked meal enthusiastically, but then, soldiers tended to eat anything with some degree of gratitude. Steve poured them wine and breathed out when Rumlow didn't bother swirling or sniffing it.

After they ate, Rumlow was happy just to kick back on the sofa, put on a record and shoot the shit. He didn't poke around Steve's bookshelves, didn't pick up his dusty tchotchkes and cluck over their abstract history, didn't ask where all his photos were. The Smithsonian had most of them, or they were archived at SHIELD. Photos of Peggy in her uniform. Of the Commandos, press shots and private ones. Photos of Bucky with a rifle on his hip and his arm slung easily over Steve's broad shoulders.

Brock Rumlow cared what sort of man Steve was in the present, and didn't really care to dig out what had brought him to that place. Steve felt oddly light about this, like he didn't have to be so anchored down by Rumlow's company.

They fucked on the rug in the lounge rather than the bedroom. Rumlow rode him, took everything he wanted, gave back enough to make Steve groan out and clutch at his thighs. "That's it, big fella," Rumlow growled, grabbing at the meat of Steve's stomach, his arms. Rocking hard on his wide cock.

He chewed gum after. Naked, arms behind his head. Not exactly resplendent, but at ease. Ever so easy. Maybe he had smoked before he was an officer. Steve felt bad about looking at him, Rumlow's body tight and tanned and sweat-marked. Dark stubble, shallow cheeks. Aging, but well. Steve felt bad about just looking at him for the sake of looking, but then Rumlow said, "Drink it in, Cap," with a smirk and his gum between his teeth, and Steve couldn't help smiling back.

He leant down and kissed Rumlow on the jaw. Rumlow pulled him in close, a clammy hand on the back of his neck. Got rid of his gum in a wine glass. They carried on kissing a while.

It felt--nice. Steve had always expected it to feel like--well, he wasn't a stubborn Catholic, but he'd always thought of sin as a physical force, an innate sense of wrong doing. The sin of impatience; of casual longing.

This just felt nice.

*

On occasion, Steve was assigned a Strike unit that was headed up by Rollins. He worked with Rollins on a strictly professional basis; the man knew how to get a job done, knew how to keep his contempt for taking orders from a talking action-figure in until after debriefing. He had no time for banter or bullshit. Rumlow, he knew, did private work for both Fury and Secretary Pierce sometimes, and Steve neither had nor wanted any say in it.

They had their own lives. Their own responsibilities. That was fine. Just fine.

Natasha nudged Steve's side as they geared up, Steve pulling on his gloves and Natasha tucking a tactical knife into the sheath around her hip. "Feeling lonesome?" she asked, something sly in her tone.

"Hmm?"

"With Rumlow off the grid?"

"Rollins will get the job done just fine," Steve murmured.

Natasha grinned, close-mouthed and half pouting. She could insinuate such things with those lips.

*

Steve saved Rumlow's life three times, and he repaid the favour once, before they got to hooking up again. Steve felt like he should say something. Do something. Thanks for keeping me out of trouble, that sort of thing. Thanks for saving my life. It wasn't very romantic.

But then, they had no obligation to be. Two people who fucked around because it was convenient. He only knew what pulp paperbacks and black and white movies had to say about love; no personal experience. No empathy with couples on street corners whispering sweet nothings.

He yearned. Went through the motions. Bought wine pricier than he'd ever meant to. Made a chagrined expression as he handed over the cash.

"You know we're not strictly--exclusive, right?" Rumlow asked, around a forkful of beef stew. Steve had cooked for him again; his repertoire was limited.

"Right," Steve said instantly. His chest contracted, and then released all in a rush. "I mean, it felt forward to ask."

Rumlow had a rough bark of a laugh, and he used it often, like the world amused him in short bursts. "You're all right, Steve."

It was unexpected, how much it relieved him.

Steve talked a little about Peggy over their food. About how he still held a flame for her as she was; that he found her strong and pretty and admirable even now, even as a woman with a life lived behind her. Rumlow nodded graciously. "Must be fucked up," he said, not unkindly, fetching two cold beers from the kitchen. "Pretty fucked up to lose everyone like that. Tough to lose even one someone; tougher to lose them all at once like that. Ain't your fault but ain't nothing you can do about it neither."

People tended to sidestep around it. Told Steve he was a hero. That he had saved the world. Saved, never lost.

He swallowed, nodded slowly.

"I'm seeing a guy," Rumlow said easily, "On the side. Brooklyn kid like you. Reminds me a lot of you."

"Should I read into that?" Steve said, aiming for teasing.

Rumlow smiled, a strange toothy smile. "Blue-eyed. Big guy. Lonely, you know."

"We're drawn to each other, I think," Steve said, suddenly quiet, picking at the label on his bottle.

"Soldiers?"

"People who've known loss," Steve finished. That was all he had to say.

Rumlow rubbed up against him from behind as he started the washing up, and Steve turned and kissed him, deep and grateful. Slotted their legs beside each other and got off standing there in the kitchen, thighs and hands and mouths.

He wondered about Rumlow's Brooklyn boy. Not jealously, just--wondered. But then he was coming, and didn't have the focus to wonder about him anymore.

*

Steve had annual memberships to half the galleries in DC, and took Rumlow as his allocated plus-one that afternoon. He knew Rumlow was not what anyone could call an art lover, but he'd agreed to come; liked Steve's company. Liked Steve.

"Can't lie to you," Rumlow said dryly, "This abstract shit ain't my cup of tea."

"I missed kind of a lot of art movements last century," Steve admitted, cocking his head to the side and looking up at the vivid Rothko. He felt something about it, he just couldn't pin it down. A lot of things were indistinct like that these days.

Rumlow put a hand on his ass, just like that, in public. Not overtly sexual, just—present. Slipped a hand into the back pocket of his jeans and left it there for a moment. "You tell me when you've had enough," he said mildly. Didn't care for the art, but cared enough for Steve.

Steve hesitated a moment. Then turned and kissed him briefly. Felt Rumlow's tongue lick out at his bottom lip, but delve no deeper. It was nice. This whole thing was nice. Rumlow had a Brooklyn boy sequestered away somewhere, and probably a string of girls from his local gym too, but he was here with Steve, kissing Steve.

Steve had never really felt, when he was young and scrawny and proud and overlooked, like that would be enough.

But it was. Jesus, sometimes it was.

*

It's not his first kiss since 1945, Natasha.

He asks Sam if he can borrow a toothbrush, hours later, and brushes his mouth for four minutes. Tries to scrub his mouth entirely clean.


End file.
